Crocodiles in the sewers

The legend was born in the late 50s of the 20th century , when the writer Robert Daley published the book World Beneath the city , in which he describes a case told to him by 84-year-old retired New York sewer superintendent named Teddy May: in the 1930s, the superintedant began to receive reports of crocodiles living in the tunnels. At first, these complaints were seen as fantasies or drunken ravings of witnesses, but soon the superintendent, having personally descended into the tunnels, became convinced that the small crocodiles (the size of a large lizard, that is, about sixty centimeters) really took root in New York, despite the fact that in winter Snow and ice from the streets gets into the sewers. There have also been cases of detection of larger individuals (up to two meters). After that, the crocodiles were destroyed by using rat poison .

Despite the fact that since then no one has found evidence of the existence of crocodiles in New York, the legend is regularly played in films, books and the media . The legend is considered by skeptics as an unlikely event, since in the USA alligators live in the southern states, as a rule, do not take root in areas north of North Carolina ; American crocodiles are even more thermophilic. These reptiles in New York allegedly got into the sewers from ships from Florida . However, even Mississippi alligators are not cold-tolerant enough. Small alligators from the caiman family, which witnesses allegedly saw, also do not meet there and cannot boast of special resistance to cold.

In the southern states, where alligators and crocodiles were until recently listed in the Red Book , the cases of these reptiles getting into the sewers no longer surprise anyone ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]} . However, in the relatively modern cities of Florida, such as Miami , sewer systems are usually made of pipes of small diameter, in contrast to the underground tunnels, popular in cities built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so the probability of large reptiles in such systems are much smaller.

In Europe, cases of crocodiles entering underground tunnels are extremely rare. In the Ukrainian media in 2007, the story of a crocodile escaping from a circus (“ Mariupol Monster ”) spread ^[7] .

According to legend, in the southern states of the United States until relatively recently (at least until the 1960s) small alligators were popular as pets like turtles or aquarium fish. However, these reptiles grow rapidly and, as soon as the animal began to create problems for the owners, it often went down the toilet , which was not particularly dangerous for the alligator. Alligators, being unpretentious and omnivorous creatures, supposedly took root in the sewers, eating insects and various garbage. However, contrary to myth, such reptiles never formed sewer colonies, unlike rats, since alligators do not breed until they reach one and a half to two meters, which takes several years, during which the probability of detection and capture of reptiles by suckers is more than sufficient. On average, the New York authorities catch between two and four alligators a year, which, as a rule, turn out to be someone's discarded pets. Most of these reptiles are found in ponds, but sometimes they are also caught from storm sewers. ^[8]

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